CIAO DATE: 07/02

NATO Enlargement

Tomas Ries, Vladimir B. Aranovsky, F. Stephen Larrabee, and François Heisbourg

ESF Working Paper No. 3
July 2001

Centre for European Policy Studies

Foreword

The third meeting of the European Security Forum on 9 July 2001, centred on NATO Enlargement, prepared, as has become the custom, by papers written respectively from a US, a European and a Russian perspective.

Tomas Ries, while underlining the need to avoid gratuitously damaging relations with Russia, emphasised that the number-one objective for the Europeans was the reinforcement of Europe's stable liberal base and this called for NATO enlargement including the Baltics. Furthermore, he noted that Russia was going to go its own way whatever occurred in terms of NATO enlargement.

Vladimir Baranovsky underscored the hawkish attitude of Russian public opinion (as evinced in opinion polls) against NATO enlargement, particularly vis-à-vis extension to the Baltics. The Kosovo air war was a turning point in terms of this hardening. However, he also stated that such a trend need not preclude practical engagement between Russia and NATO. A 'post- Kursk' discussion on maritime security; theatre missile defence; an update of the '3 Nos'; the joint handling of Macedonia-style crisis situations—such were some of the issues that could, if they were addressed in a cooperative manner, improve the Russia-NATO climate.

Steven Larrabee, in presenting his paper, drew the group's attention more particularly to three points: (a) The US dynamic was increasingly pointing to the entry of all three Baltic States, even if the case could be made for letting in Lithuania ahead of the others given its good relations with Russia and given the absence of a serious Russian minority issue; (b) The first enlargement had demonstrated that Russian-Polish relations had actually improved to what they had been previously; (c) The EU and NATO enlargement processes should be coordinated.

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